After the Wedding
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: The aliens didn't invade until after Jack said "I now pronounce you man and wife." But before "You may kiss the bride." Part of the "Tomorrow is Yesterday" 'Verse.
1. Love Did No More Begin

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's May Challenges have been added because... well, I had a reason and I'm sure it was a good one. The new challenges will run through the end of May. If you'd prefer to do April's, feel free. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. Stories are linked on my LJ.**

This fic, a prequel to "As Its to Time", was written for **Rynne** for her winning bid in the Support Stacie Auction. First time posting on FFnet.

Part of the "Tomorrow is Yesterday" 'Verse.

* * *

**After the Wedding Part 1  
**

_Love Did No More Begin_

"It sounds like the set up for a joke," Jack said gleefully.

"Mumph," said the Doctor.

Rose giggled. "Two Time Lords and an Immortal are standing at a bar," she agreed.

"Exactly," Jack exclaimed enthusiastically. "And the Immortal turns to the bartender, and the bartender says..."

"Go away, Jack, I'm busy," said the bartender.

"Ianto," Jack whined, "you have to play along."

Ianto frowned at him. "I am playing along, Jack. I am fetching drinks. Rose asked me to tend bar so that you wouldn't, and I am."

Rose smiled at him sweetly. "And I appreciate it very much," she said. "C'mon, let's go sit down," she added. "He looks busy and everyone's having a good time, let's not spoil it."

"Mumph," said the Doctor.

Rose chuckled and leaned into his side. "All right. Almost everyone is having a good time."

They took seats at their table and Rose let the Doctor put his head on her shoulder. When he started nuzzling at her neck, however, she found it necessary to shove him off. "Don't do that," she said, to the hurt look the Doctor threw her. "Please, Doctor?"

He made an annoyed chuffing noise and flopped back in his chair, the absolute picture of utter defeat.

"Tuxedo of Doom," Jack said, wisely.

The Doctor brandished a tired fist at the Immortal, then flopped back into his crushed and destroyed position.

"Still, gonna be one for the record books," Jack continued, grinning because he was just like that.

"No, it will not," Rose said, crossly. "What'm I gonna say?"

"'Dear diary,'" Jack suggested for a start.

Rose smiled and took the Doctor's hand, patting it gently with her other one. "Today I married the man of my dreams." The Doctor smiled sweetly at her, and leaned close enough to rub their noses together. She let him do that for a moment, then pulled back, her dark eyes flashing. "The aliens didn't invade until after Jack said 'I now pronounce you man and wife.'"

Jack snickered. "But before 'You may kiss the bride,'" he added.

The Doctor made a noise that sounded a lot like he was grinding his teeth together.

"And my brave and selfless husband dove in to save the day with only his sonic screwdriver and his wonderfully chatty gob." The Doctor grinned proudly, then seemed to decide that maybe he was offended, and his face screwed up. Rose poked him in the side and he wiggled in the chair, his eyes dancing.

Jack shook his head, fighting hard to keep from pronouncing them the cutest couple in the Universe. It was almost disgusting how adorable they were, really. "Which annoyed the aliens," he prodded.

Rose rolled her eyes, then nodded. "And, although he rescued his lovely bride..."

"And her dress," Jack put in.

"And her dress," Rose agreed.

"Very important to save the dress," Jack added. "White dress. Very important."

"Shut up, Jack," Rose said with rolled eyes as Jack reached out to finger the pale fabric.

"But it's white. It's important that it's white for reasons that escape..." Jack grinned at her, his best wolfish grin, then wicked cheekily at the Doctor. "Well, all of us actually."

Rose blushed the most delightful shade while the Doctor struggled to grin, too, and winced horribly. "Jack!"

"You're the one who wanted a white dress, Rosie," Jack reminded her. "A white dress. I'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid to believe you're supposed to wear a white dress."

"So gonna kill you," Rose murmured, and leaned on the Doctor. The older Time Lord hid his face in his bride's neck, nuzzling again, and she pulled away to continue as if it was the most important thing in the world. "He still managed to get spattered in alien attack goo."

"Mumph murple mumph mum," the Doctor said, probably correcting her usage of "alien attack goo" with the technical name of the slime in question.

"Alien attack goo," Rose repeated firmly, "which he just had to lick."

"You had to go and lick it," Jack reiterated to the Doctor, in case he wasn't already annoyed enough.

The Doctor made a gesture that was considered obscene by most humanoid species in almost every age throughout the entirety of recorded history. Jack just grinned.

"Of course, he just had to lick it," Rose repeated again, now sounding extremely annoyed. "And of course, it reacts oddly with Time Lord saliva. And of course, I now have plenty of time to write. In my diary. On my honeymoon." She threw her hands in the air, then let her head drop to the tabletop before her.

The Doctor put a hand on her back and tried to rub soothing circles across the stretch of skin left bare by the beautiful white wedding gown she was wearing. Rose shrugged him off, then thumped him, then laid her head on the table again. The Doctor glowered at Jack over the top of her golden head, his dark eyes blazing with the promise of all manner of unnatural torture.

"I'll go get her a drink," Jack offered.

"Mumph um mumph," the Doctor agreed.

Jack shook his head. It was their wedding reception, he hadn't ordered the aliens, and he certainly hadn't told the Doctor to lick anything. He would really love to know how this was, in any way, his fault. He stopped by the bar for only a minute, but saw the Doctor leading Rose to a quiet corner of the room and went to look for some more interesting way to get into trouble.

* * *

"Brigadier," said the tall blond in the doorway, his whole face caught up in his smile. "Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbrigde-Stewart."

The Brigadier sighed. "Hello Doctor," he said as he shook the proffered hand. He turned a little and looked at the small woman at the Doctor's side. "Miss Jovanka," he added.

"Good to see you again, Brig," Miss Jovanka answered, equal parts tom-boy and lady.

"I say, you did get old, didn't you?" The Doctor had pulled out his spectacles and was inspecting the Brigadier's face with a worried expression in his vividly blue eyes.

"You're a bit out of your normal time frame, Doctor," the Brigadier felt compelled to point out.

The Doctor's expression got even more puzzled, if that was even possible, his head whipping around to consider the TARDIS out on the lawn. "I take it this isn't 1984?" he said as he looked back at the Brigadier with quite a nervous frown on his youthful features.

"Not even the right century," the Brigadier agreed.

"Oh, dear," the Doctor said, while his companion looked up at him and glowered furiously. He looked down at her and sniffed delicately.

"Doctor!" the small woman almost snarled.

"Still," the Doctor said, bracingly, taking in the crowd in the room off to their left, "it is a party, Tegan. You like parties, and you must admit they're much nicer than airports. Are you hosting a wedding reception, Brigadier?" He crinkled up his face in a petulant, annoyed expression. "Please tell me it isn't your own. Surely it can't have taken Doris this long to finally pin you in place?"

The Brigadier chuckled. "Doris and I have been happily married for many years. We were sensible. We eloped." He shook his head at the young couple dancing together in the ball room. "I can't say those two were ever sensible, and he certainly isn't."

The Doctor considered the slowly swaying bride and groom. "I don't recognize them. New to your group, are they?"

"You could say that," the Brigadier agreed blandly. "You're welcome to come in, of course, Doctor, as long as you promise not to bring chaos in with you. We've had quite enough of that today."

The Doctor gave a broad, beatific smile, showing his slightly crooked teeth. "Just Tegan, and she's quiet as a mouse."

Tegan rolled her eyes. "When you get struck by lightning, don't be anywhere near me," she said. "Thank you for having us," she added, turning her attention back to the Brigadier completely. "I don't suppose they'll mind?"

"Miss Jovanka, you're on the guest list, I assure you."

The Doctor's face fell and went completely petulant now. The Brigadier had to stifle a grin at the thought that at least this one didn't pout. Not that the other one could at the moment. "And I'm not?" he asked, all indignation.

"Are you kidding, Doctor?" Tegan said. "No one ever knows when or where you'll show up. How can they invite you to anything?"

The Doctor seemed to consider this, then nodded sagely. "Very true," he agreed.

The Brigadier pointed them in the direction of the open bar and leaned back against the wall. Harkness happened to be standing handily nearby, so he summoned the annoying immortal over with a tilt of his head.

He wondered who was going to have the job of explaining to the Doctor that the groom was never on the guest list.

* * *

Just as he'd almost managed to work up the nerve to ask Tegan if she might fancy a dance, just one dance, some excruciatingly pretty chap in an antique military uniform swept her out onto the floor. The Doctor sighed his frustration - they were never going to get on, he didn't know why he tried, really - and turned to the extremely compassionate looking young bartender. He ordered a coffee because he wasn't in the mood for alcohol and didn't expect to find tea at a wedding.

He was rewarded with quite the best cup of coffee he had ever tasted, and a few moments of understanding conversation with the bartender who was, apparently, Tegan's dance partner's regular - erm - dance partner. Or possibly former dance partner, the Doctor wasn't quite certain on that point. When the young man went to serve someone else, the Doctor turned to look at the bride and groom, who were still swaying together in a quiet corner as if in defiance of the loud and fast music being played.

Knowing he was in his own future, the Doctor wondered if they might be future companions of his. Time clung to them rather tightly, as if enamored of their very presence. Though he forced himself not to look at their time traces, no matter how he wanted to do, he could clearly see they were time travelers and familiar with wonders.

As a result of his study, the Doctor suspected he was the only one who saw it when the bride abruptly stopped dancing. Her mouth opened in an 'o' that was shaped like fury, and her eyes blazed. The groom's eyes blazed just as brightly as they glared at each other.

Then, as if it was a perfectly choreographed event, they stormed off in completely opposing directions. The young bartender appeared behind the Doctor, and the bride appeared beside him, and he was rather unexpectedly in the middle of something that looked like it was about to be a wedding reception disaster.

"Do you need anything Rose?" the bartender asked. He looked like the perfect bartender, the ideal combination of sympathy, serenity, and seriousness, all exquisitely tailored into an Armani suit.

"Just water, please, Ianto," she said. She looked out over the actual dance floor and smiled. "And I see Jack's found someone to disgrace with his presence."

"I'd give you the odds, Rose, but I've never met the lady in question." The bartender placed a water with ice and lemon in front of the bride - Rose, apparently - and turned to assist a young black woman in neat UNIT dress, whom the Doctor had never met.

"Bloody martyr," Rose muttered into her water glass. She turned around, her elbows resting on the bar, and reclined in a fashion that was decidedly not lady-like. Apparently, she also didn't realize her friend had deserted her, because she said, "If it is the last thing I ever do, I am going to convince that man that not everything that happens is his fault."

The Doctor shook his head at this and felt compelled by something - whether it was the beauty of the distressed bride, or the fondness he heard behind her anger, he didn't know - to put in his two pence. "Couldn't possibly be," he said. "Everything that happens is my fault."

Rose turned to him, then, a ready smile on her face, and the Doctor was struck momentarily speechless by the light in her eyes. For just the slenderest filet of time, he thought he saw worlds begin and end in the dark gold depths. She blinked and it was gone, but the Time Lord was now caught.

Tegan and her erstwhile escort appeared while the bride and the Doctor smiled at each other, with the Doctor utterly clueless as to why he might be smiling so. "The lady needs a whiskey and soda, please, Yan, and I'll have my usual," the man - whom the Doctor assumed to be Jack - said.

The bartender - who seemed to be Ianto, or just Yan, sometimes - said something decidedly snarky, but the Doctor didn't register what it was because he was too busy trying to decide if he'd seen this young woman before and, if so, where. She looked like she knew him. She was smiling like she knew him.

"Probably better put your eyes back into your face before the groom comes back, Doctor," Tegan murmured. He could tell from her tone that he was the only one meant to hear this rather amusing and unnecessary advice, but it made Jack laugh.

"Rose," he said, "may I present Miss Tegan Jovanka? And you know him, of course. Biblically."

"Shut up, Jack," said Rose, and her smile finally released the Doctor from its spell. She turned to Tegan, her smile now smaller but just as open. "I've heard so much about you," she said, and that was it. She was hugging Tegan as if they were old friends, and Tegan, though startled, was hugging her back.

"Better," Jack said when the bride stepped back and grinned cheekily at the Doctor's bemused companion.

"I promised I'd never pull that stunt again, an' I haven't, Jack. You weren't even there, an' it wasn't that bad. Speakin' of which. Tegan, have you met Sarah Jane? She's here somewhere."

Tegan smiled. "I don't think... No, I haven't; who's Sarah Jane?"

"Jack, you've gotta introduce them, please?"

"Must you?" the Doctor asked plaintively.

Rose's smile batted up to him again. "We need to know each other. You don't get it, an' that's fine, but we REALLY need to know each other."

As Jack led Tegan away, the Doctor heard her ask Jack, "What did you mean, biblically?" He suddenly wondered about that himself, and turned to Rose to ask her.

"Dance with me?" she requested, her hands outstretched.

She knew him, this big-eyed stranger in his oldest human friend's house. She knew him, and he found himself almost drawn to her. "Who are you, Rose?" he asked.

She grinned, her tongue just visible at the edge of her smile, and he was fascinated. "I'm the bride," she said. Her attempt at a haughty expression collapsed almost immediately into giggles as her South London accent came back, full strength. "An' by human custom, everybody dances with the bride. Even you, Doctor." She took his hand, their fingers entwining as if it was perfectly natural for them to do so. Her skin was cool against his palm and the Doctor was startled, but decided to blame it on the glass she had been holding. "I know for a fact that the Universe doesn't implode if the Doctor dances, so c'mon, give it a go."

Though reluctant, the Doctor nodded and moved to lead her to the dance floor. She shook her head and tugged, and they were soon in the quieter area where she'd been dancing with her husband just moments ago. He frowned. "Is this a good idea?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Dunno," she admitted. Dark eyes shining as she gazed up at the Doctor, Rose danced anyway.


	2. Than Love Will End

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's June Challenges have been added because June's a good month for a change. The new challenges will run through the end of June. If you'd prefer to do May's, feel free. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. Stories are linked on my LJ.**

This fic, a prequel to "As Its to Time", was written for **Rynne** for her winning bid in the Support Stacie Auction. First time posting on FFnet.

Part of the "Tomorrow is Yesterday" 'Verse.

* * *

**After the Wedding Part 2  
**

_Than Love Will End_

The music slowed, the song became a soft, imploring love song, and Rose danced closer, her arms around the Doctor's neck now, her smile wistful and far away. The Doctor did what he always did. "What are you two fighting about?" he asked.

Rose shrugged. "What do couples usually fight about?"

The Doctor frowned. "I've no idea, I don't..."

"You don't do domestic," she interrupted with a teasing smile.

The Doctor laughed. "Very apt."

Her smile turned tender and so strangely fond. "You've no idea how close you are, have you? Right now, one word different at a different time is all it would take. For awhile."

He frowned. He very much wanted to ask her what she meant, or maybe tell her that she really must know him very well to know that. But he was the Doctor and he didn't do that. "You're changing the subject again," he said instead.

"Sorry," she replied. "Bad habit I picked up from... well." She chewed nervously at her bottom lip.

"You called him a martyr?" the Doctor prodded gently. Might as well try to make things better while he was here. He was a physician, after all, and a very good one, if he did say so himself.

She snorted rather indelicately. "He is a martyr, he don't need me to tell him so." Rose looked up into the Doctor's eyes and hers were bright with unshed tears. "It isn't his fault," she insisted. "I know it's gotta seem that way, sometimes, but it isn't. Sometimes an alien invasion is just an alien invasion, and sometimes crap timing is just that... really crap timing, an' nothin' to do with..." She paused. "I shouldn't be tellin' you this. You're not s'posed to be here."

The Doctor was surprised. "I'm not?" he asked, pulling away from her and blinking in considerable bemusement. She couldn't possibly know that. And what was wrong with him? Why had that come out sounding rather more like a tease than a question? He stood smiling down at the girl who had asked him to dance, not sure why he was suddenly feeling so full of mischief.

"Well, you are," Rose admitted. "Just not..." She made a helpless looking gesture at his body, her hands describing things he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know. "Decorative vegetables," she said, finally, pointing at the celery stalk attached to his lapel.

"It's a stimulant?" he offered blithely.

Rose reached up and touched his face with one small, cool hand. "So innocent you've gotta be guilty of sin. Some things never change." She lowered her hand and took his. "You just made that up," she clarified, her tongue between her teeth again. "An' I think you're flirting with me, too."

The Doctor started. Was he? Maybe? Couldn't possibly be. "Bit late for that, eh?" he said with artful enthusiasm.

She giggled. "Early," she corrected and then he really started.

"Rose?" he said.

"S'my fault you're here, I think," she said. "Pretty sure. See, he's gotten all glued together an'... an' I really, really wanted a proper kiss on our wedding day."

Rose stepped close and the Doctor had no choice but to embrace her - either that or let them both tumble to the floor, complicating matters enormously. He wrapped his arms around her and they fit together all too shockingly well. It was so confusing. She smelled like rain and home and daydreams come true. Her eyes were dark and trusting and he didn't understand how anyone could trust him that much, especially not if they knew him as well as she seemed to do. Her hands were cool where she touched him, her hearts were thrumming like mad where she pressed her body against his.

Wait. Her _hearts_.

"I... what?" He considered her carefully and, unable to help himself, reached up to brush back a lock of hair that had escaped her delicate coiffure.

There was no way she could possibly exist. He had to be imagining things. There were so few female Gallifreyans, even fewer of them who actually became Time Lords. He'd thought he caught a glimpse of the Rassilon Imprinatur in her eyes earlier, but what could a female Time Lord be doing on Earth in a wedding dress?

She smiled gently. "Doctor, you should probably go." Her accent got thicker, her voice trembled. "An' - I s'pose - block out your memory, too, right? 'Cuz you're not gonna get here for a long time, an' you're gonna hafta go through hell - a coupla times - t'do it."

He frowned. "I'm here?" he asked. "I hadn't noticed..."

Rose's face twisted in a kind of sweet, wistful pain, and her voice was intent and purposeful. "I'm a Time Lord," she assured him gently. "Long story. But I am. The bonded bride of another Time Lord." She stroked her finger gently along the length of his hand, tracing the back of it as if she had both right and knowledge to caress him so familiarly. "And you can't tell."

But anyone could tell. He should be able to see it from orbit, practically, with his four dimensional vision. A bonding was practically unheard of in his time frame, a custom older than the Citadel itself, one that hadn't been practiced since before the Panopticon was built. Even outside his regular time frame, he should be able to see her husband's name all over her.

Who would even do a bonding anymore? One of the very old Time Lords, perhaps, who was settling down in his very last life. Or a pair of the very young ones, as an experiment, just to see what it was like to have one voice stand out above the unremitting chorus in every Time Lord's head. Or, perhaps, one who had fallen very, very hard for his lover, fallen very far from grace altogether. Maybe a loner, a rebel, one who was perpetually cut off from his people, who found company, love, and comfort in another kindred soul. And, incidentally, one who was inordinately fond of Earth.

Oh dear. A lonely rebel, cut off.

And the Earth would always be his problem, until the day it was blown out of space.

"It was our first date," Rose whispered. She smiled up at him. "Your eyes were blue and we had chips."

"Did I project that?"

"Did you have to do?"

He was shaken to the very core. "Apparently not." The one person who wouldn't be able to see her bond was the one who put it there.

"But see, that's why you have to go, now. I did this, I must've an'..."

He hushed her with a finger to her lips, even now uncertain as to why he dared. "I think it's rather my fault," he corrected. "I am the one with the time machine."

"Bloody martyr," Rose murmured around his finger, and covered his hand with her own. She kissed his knuckles. "One day, I promise you, you're gonna understand."

"Understand what?" he asked, almost petulantly.

"Some things happen for a reason, sure, but that reason isn't always you. Sometimes things happen by pure random chance. Sometimes things happen because someone makes mistakes. And usually, my Doctor, it's not your fault at all."

"Your Doctor?" he asked, a smile he couldn't fight tugging at his lips.

She grinned that cheeky, sparkling grin. "Course you're my Doctor. All Doctors are mine, didn't you know?"

"I guess I do - for now." He bent his head, until he was talking right across her full, pink lips. "A wedding present, then, my Rose."

He kissed her. If that was what she wanted, she should have it. Something in her eyes said that she had wanted for a lot over her lifetime and should never want for anything ever again. She might have to do, but she shouldn't. He kissed her slowly, as chaste and gentle as any first kiss ever should be, a brushing of lips across lips, a slight and tender pressure.

Then, he turned to collect his companion and go.

"What'd you do to her?" he demanded of Jack the moment he found the very strange man with Tegan swaying on his arm.

"Gave her something for her memory," Jack said calmly. "She and Sarah Jane aren't supposed to meet until later for her. I took care of it."

"I knew," Tegan said stubbornly, swaying lightly from Jack's arm and onto the Doctor's. "Bad idea, Doc, but I bet you're rubbish at weddings, especially your own. Kissed the bride, though, that's good."

"The resident expert said she probably shouldn't be allowed to remember you kissing someone else, either," Jack added, as if Tegan wasn't there.

"She doesn't even like me," the Doctor pointed out rather accurately.

"Sure I do," said Tegan, vaguely. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek with a gentleness that belied her usual forceful personality. "Let's go before you wreck something important."

"Yes. I expect even Adric and Nyssa will have grown bored with the Library by now."

He took Tegan to the TARDIS, then cast his thoughts out, looking for that last loose end. _"You saw that?" _

A familiar voice - his own, but not - replied, with no little humor, _"Of course. Not letting her out of my sight, whatever she thinks."_

_"She says it isn't your fault."_

_"She always does,"_ came the faint, almost cheerful answer. _"Get out of here before I go all jealous husband on you."_

_"To that, all I can say..." _ The Doctor gave a small mental shrug. _"We're a Time Lord."_

The final answer was as intrigued as it was amused. _"I like how I think..."_

* * *

The Doctor cornered Rose only after they'd thrown bouquets, she'd said goodbye to all their guests, and they'd been chased around with bird seed and bubbles. She was in their room, tucked politely on their bed, reading up on some physics that had been annoying her for a month now. "This is stupid, yeah?" she complained. "None of it makes sense. It's like... even the writer didn't understand it, but it's temporal physics, and the writer was a Time Lord. What can possibly be the problem?"

"Mumph umph uh muph?" he said, then rolled his eyes. "Mumph."

Rose blinked up at him. "You're gonna explode before that stuff wears off," she teased. "It'll be all golden light and flashy sound effects, as the Doctor regenerates himself from an inability to run his mouth."

His hands tilted and began describing the words he wanted to say in the flowing, lyrical motions of Asliean sign language. Rose blinked. "The TARDIS is translating that," she observed, her voice a bit more surprised than her face. "But if you wanted to talk in my head, you don't really need sign language, do you?"

"No," he signed. "But you asked an intellectual question, and I'm not answering intellectual questions over our bond tonight."

Rose chuckled. "What are you going to do tonight, then?"

"Put the book down, Rose," he ordered, the signs clipped to convey the commanding tone.

She flinched. "Are you mad at me? 'Cuz I almost caused a paradox?"

"You didn't cause it," he signed. The floating gestures became slow, close to his body, meant to convey apology and a certain measure of submission. "No one caused it. It was wild chance. We fixed it."

"Jack said you were gonna turn me over your knee. I think he was just being Jack."

"I don't want to talk about him. It's our honeymoon."

Rose started, her legs crossing at the knees in the long flannel nightdress she wore. "We can't do anything about that," she said, sadly. She turned determinedly back to her book.

"Don't be too sure," he signed, the motions light, loose, and bouncy to show teasing.

"It's not happening. Go get your shower."

"Why isn't it happening?" He loosened the tie and left it to hang, then teased open the collar of his dress shirt.

"Can't even kiss you or I'll end up glued to you, Doctor," she said, firmly. Then, she turned over, her chest against the pillows, the book firmly lodged between her face and the mattress as she gathered the pillows like a hug.

"_Suit yourself,_" he mused and, due to his lack of an audience, stripped hastily. He didn't even pretend not to notice Rose watching him pad naked into the en suite. He wanted her to watch, wanted her to see and feel and want everything he put in front of her.

A quick perfunctory clean-up, wishing soap and water - or anything known to any civilized world - would remove this disgusting goo (ok, point to Rose, there) from his mouth, and the Doctor thought he was as ready as he was going to be. He hadn't even attempted anything like this in ages, wasn't sure he even knew what he was doing, but he had to try. For her, for them, he knew they needed this.

The towel secure around his hips, he climbed into their bed behind his wife - married on 79 planets at last count, including her original one, and their one that didn't exist any more - and rubbed his nose up the back of her exposed neck. She shuffled nervously - he could feel the worry coming off of her in waves - as he nuzzled her hair, breathing her in.

"Doctor," she protested. "Please don't, I'll want..."

"_What will you want?_" he thought, letting the bond open between them, the sensation of completion and togetherness stirring him in more ways than one. He rubbed the side of his jaw where his nose had recently been, loving the feel of her smooth skin against his.

Rose gasped.

"_Trying to keep me out with flannel, Rose Tyler?_" he wondered, fingers skimming under the hem of her nightdress.

"No..." she gasped. The Doctor spread his broad hand against her thigh, looking down to admire just how well his grip could cover her. "No, Doctor, I'd never." He smiled as she reached behind her to tug at the nightgown, trying to get it back into place. Rose gasped and the Doctor inhaled sharply as her knuckles grazed exactly where he wanted her to touch his body. Weakly, she tried to shuffle away from him. "It... it was to keep me in."

"_It's our wedding night._" He breathed through his nose, a cool puff of air against her neck. "_And our Bonding night. Supposed to be..._" He grinned and allowed everything he was feeling to transmit along the bond. "_Consummated._"

Rose groaned. Vague, sensual thoughts of various consummations went flitting along her mind and he reached out to grasp them, bring the ideas into sharp relief. His hand skimmed forward, tugging at the tiny knickers just where her thighs met, blocking him from his prize. He really wanted the use of his tongue back, right now.

"_Let's get you out of this._" His thoughts were a whisper wrapped around hers. "_Let me show you._"

"But..."

"_You got your kiss, love._" He tugged at the buttons on the front of the gown. "_It was necessary. So is this._"

He reached into her mind and found the contact points he needed. Like so many other things he had learned over the course of his long lifetime, something he needed a few minutes to refresh his memory about, and then he could do it again. "Rose, I can dance!" the Doctor remembered telling her all those years ago, grinning like a lunatic as his feet suddenly remembered what his mind had been trying to tell him all along. Back then, she had been human and so young but still everything he ever wanted. Now, she was all that and more.

She met him eagerly, confused and uncertain, but filled with the same longing that was building within the Doctor. "_That's right, my love,_" the Doctor's mind whispered, even as he nuzzled his face into Rose's breasts. "_Close your eyes and think of me. Be with me._"

The impression of Rose's giggling and the words, "_Alien space sex,_" went hovering through the heated air between them. The Doctor would have laughed right alongside her, was in fact, in his mind. Then, he brushed the place inside her thoughts that he needed to find, touching softly against something that had never been touched. Rose stiffened, gasped, and all laughter stopped.

It was all touch after that, sensations that were not real and yet felt more real than the most physical, intimate touch. He'd forgotten, or maybe never known, what this kind of joining really felt like.

Their minds united with a rhythm that matched their heart beats. Physical sensation manifested, duplicating in thought every brush of skin on skin, every shared kiss, every ecstasy of shared exploration.

This was a new level of intimacy even for them. Rose's thoughts skittered from sense to impression to aching in her body and in her head, wanting him inside her in every possible way. The Doctor felt it, too, felt it along with her, even as he kept his mind carefully centered on her and on everything she was feeling. He lost awareness of his body, and yet it was always there, throbbing and painfully hard and desperately seeking to be buried inside her.

Love blazed and burned and, being temporal, it was multifaceted and immediate at the same time. It was the new young love in a basement with joined hands and a soft declaration in words, six instead of three, but they meant the same. It was the age old love of two endless people who could look back on their lives and say they began where the other also did. It was the still and sharing love of a family long denied, quiet moments and stolen kisses and so much laughter. It was the tentative, hesitant love in touch of two who came together for the first time, almost terrified to believe it was real. It was the current joy of a newly wed couple lying breathless and shaking in each others arms.

It was utter abandon and utter joy.

Want burned into need with cold fire and longing. Individuality was not lost so much as won. Ultimate self to ultimate self, her Doctor and his Rose gave themselves up to each other and became themselves for each other. Passion fired every nerve ending in two bodies, writhing together for this closeness, for each other, for this this this!!

_youinsidemeinsideyou_

Reality exploded, went skittering off in a dizzying wave of ultimate ecstasy, as they reached, together, and found the absolute pinnacle.

* * *

_"Well?" _the Doctor managed, when he became aware of the rest of the Universe around him. He was covered in cool sweat, lying in soaked sheets, drenched in the scents of climax and emotions and Rose. She smelled of him, though, so it was right.

"_Do that again._" Rose, giddy and breathless, couldn't manage speech even though she'd not lost her mouth at all.

In two days time, when this stuff finally wore off, he would do her one better than that. For now... He would have grinned if he could, and his dark eyes sparkled and danced into her own dreamy ones. "_Oh, yes._"

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness woke to the realization that someone had stolen his floor during the night. They had also built a nuclear research facility inside his skull and the testing seemed to include an endless succession of detonations somewhere in the vicinity of his frontal lobe. To add insult to injury, someone, possibly the same bastard who had replaced his proper flooring with this ridiculously uncomfortable metal, was prodding him in the ribcage.

He knew he still had a ribcage because it hurt like torture even without the polite trainer toe that was poking at him as if checking to see if he was fully cooked. He groped blindly for the ankle of the offender, only to find himself laughed at and taunted, possibly by demons.

"What did you do?" interrogated his tormentor.

"Wirrzt?" Jack inquired eloquently.

"How did you do this? How could anyone do this? I didn't even know this was possible. Me! I've lived more than a thousand years, Jack, and I cannot even begin to tell you exactly how many things you have personally done that are completely and utterly impossible. Nevertheless, this takes the cake. Do you think for even one moment that I'm going to let you get away with this? I'll... I'll boil you in soup..."

The Doctor's monologue (it was obviously the Doctor; no one else could possibly monologue like that) was cut short by the sound of bells. The Doctor sputtered indignantly, and the bells rang their joy even louder. The nuclear reactor in his left hemisphere went critical. Jack wondered if he could get away with dying quietly to himself.

The bells cut off and were replaced by Rose, teasing. (Again, it was obviously Rose; no one else could possibly tease like that.) "That's your big threat, Doctor?"

"What of it?" the Doctor demanded indignantly. (No one did indignant like the Doctor, either.)

Jack held his breath. The Doctor continued carping like a council estate mother. (Three guesses where he picked that up.) "It isn't possible to get a Time Machine drunk, Rose. He has to have been working on this devious little plot of his for days!! I'll... I'll have him sold into slavery on Quixallery."

"All the things that've been done to you over the years, an' the worst threat you can come up with is to make him into some rich boy's pet? You're losin' your touch, oh Impending Thunderhead, not to mention prob'ly turnin' him on!"

The Doctor sighed. "It's Jack," the Doctor groaned. "Neither one of you'd let me do something really horrible to him."

"Let him alone," Rose said, "I'm sure it was an accident, and he's certainly paying for it now."

"Three seconds," the Doctor agreed.

Reality faded to black, and then burst back into Jack's lungs like an annoyed March wind. Feeling much better, Jack endeavored to sit up, but found it a bit of a problem for the moment. "I had help," he said.

"You... had help?!" the Doctor roared. "Who'd you let onto my ship?"

"No one, Doctor," Jack said with a sigh. "She helped me get her drunk, so I don't think you can blame me. Besides, aren't you supposed to be consummating something now that you've got the use of your mouth back?" Jack grinned and, in precisely calculated tones, added, "If you need help... or a witness..."

The Doctor swore musically and huffed down the corridor. Rose leaned over, kissed Jack on the forehead, and turned to follow her husband. "Feel better soon," she said. "Both of you."

"That's why I kept her," said the woman sprawled across Jack's chest.

Jack chuckled and ran a hand through the hair like a starry banner that tumbled all around them. "One of these days, you're going to have to tell him."

The sound of the Doctor's swearing reached them, even through the corridors. Rose had probably just informed him that he'd lost another round. "One of these days, I'm going to have to wash his mouth out with soap," she replied. Then she shrugged. "You'd think he'd find more important things to say when he's been forced to silence for two days."

Jack laughed. "Did you have anything to do with that?"

The ancient, glowing, night dark eyes met Jack's own with a twinkle that ought to be illegal. "Who? Me?" she asked, all child-like innocence and ageless wonder.

Jack just chuckled and hoped she'd sober up soon.


End file.
